... Parallel universe. Imagine whenever you go to sleep, your subconscious mind travels to a parallel universe (a different one every time), and the things you experience there and the people you meet there actually exist, but not in our world. Do you think this could be possible? There's no way to prove this theory wrong and no way to prove that it's right. But this would explain some conversations I had with dream characters. How can they think on their own? Also, do you think it's possible that dreams are glimpses of lives of ourselves in other worlds?

Hitchens razor: That which can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

How do you know your dream characters think? You are employing behaviourism to indicate sentience/consciousness/cognitive thought rather than positing a semblance of such.

While such method may soundly save you from solipsism in the real world, as it appears to confirm our theory of mind, it is completely fallacious and void in a world that may be entirely created by your mind. How can one trust a dream world with a potential to emulate both animate and inanimate things? Nothing in dreamland can be plausibly taken at face value.

If you can imagine people that don't exist and conversations that have never taken place, then your dreaming mind can create such illusions with great realism. All the inspiration a brain needs is the sensory bombardment it received since its conception.

Parallel universes and alternate dimensions may well exist according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, but I highly doubt that our dreams have anything to do with them.

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

Don't underestimate the power of the mind. Our existence and surrounding world is the result of various stimuli entering and being processed into a whole. So, I believe a dream is simply a creation of the mind, whether it be due to processing memory, random stimuli and electrical impulses, or a bit of conscious mind imagination.

In a sense, yes, it is a different world, but not a physical one, and not one that exists anywhere else but in our minds. For me, dreams never feel as real as reality. Also, it's proven the laws of physics don't apply in a dream, which right there is disproval of dreams bringing you to "another world".

If you pay close attention, you will notice certain stimuli is never proper. Smells and touch never translate well for me in a dream, whereas visual and auditory seems to be extremely spot on. Such as, if I try to seek out something that I know the sensation of, like my couch, it will feel like burlap or nothing at all. But the voice of my mother could not be closer to reality.

I think your observations are spot on. I think, in all honesty, everyone can relate to a degree.

Ultimately, in their distorted way, our dreams reflect our physical condition as the result of constant sensory input from the real world. That's the truth.

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

If the dream world is a parallel universe, I'd probably be labelled as a deranged "serial killer" in that universe. Since I know my lucid dreams aren't real, I will recreate people who have given me a really hard time, specifically people who have either tried to or have assaulted me in real life or hurt someone else I know, and like in a video game, I will kill them or torture them in all sorts of violent ways. Because I know it isn't real, it is to me like I am doing these actions in a virtual reality so I will never get punished, and no one in real life is ever affected, because the characters I kill are just as pretend as killing characters in a video game. I hope you don't feel sorry for the soldier/moblin/Koopa you kill next time in a video game because you think the video game is a parallel universe.

An example of lucid dreaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW7ps_VSPkg (1:46 Is that me or is this me? "Am I still dreaming?") Simpsons example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3X1n5Yny3g

Just like daydreaming about killing an annoying or unpleasant cunt. It's just thoughts. They have no objective reality other than the neuronal intercommunication in our skulls.

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

I see your points. But lucid dreaming and dreaming can hardly be regarded as the same. When you constitute characters and kill them in a lucid dream, you are in charge of your world and of course no one will be harmed in real life. When you have a normal dream though, you cannot decide what happens and you believe it to be real at the time. Can you feel pain in dreams? Because to me every emotion including pain is real when I am dreaming.

Marix wrote:I see your points. But lucid dreaming and dreaming can hardly be regarded as the same. When you constitute characters and kill them in a lucid dream, you are in charge of your world and of course no one will be harmed in real life. When you have a normal dream though, you cannot decide what happens and you believe it to be real at the time. Can you feel pain in dreams? Because to me every emotion including pain is real when I am dreaming.

Ok, this is going to be a mouthful, but it might be worth it ...

The percepts are real in the sense that they make their appearance in consciousness. All types of perception---waking life, hallucinations and dreams---have a subjective reality (otherwise perception wouldn't be). But we must learn to differentiate between perception generated by sensory input that tells us something about the objective world and perception elaborately defined by secondhand, and somewhat scrambled, neuronal data.

In the former, your subjectivity reveals a satisfactory picture of the external world of objects; in the latter, the subjective takes a fictional route where perception becomes an expression of subconscious schemas and retained information. The illusory worlds in dreams have no objective reality---in this sense we may say what is perceived isn't real---even if such experiences emulate the ones constrained by the act of sensing objective reality itself.

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."